The girl who broke the glass

*Two Weeks Later — Kaine Tower, Rooftop Garden, 6:47 PM*

The paparazzi were like vultures with Nikons.

“Mr. Kaine! Mrs. Kaine! Over here!”

“Alina, look left! Show us the ring!”

“Damien, is it true you’re stepping down before the IPO?”

Alina’s smile was a masterpiece. She’d practiced it in the penthouse mirror for three hours. Lips up, eyes soft, head tilted like she adored the man whose hand was currently crushing her spine.

_Smile, Alina. Your dad’s life depends on how real this looks._

Damien’s arm was around her waist. Possessive. Cold. His thumb pressed into her hip, not in affection — in warning. _Behave._

“One more, and we’re done,” he murmured against her hair. To the cameras, it looked like a husband nuzzling his wife. To Alina, it felt like a threat whispered through clenched teeth.

The flashbulbs made her eyes water. Or maybe it was the nanites.

Her shoulder blade had been burning since noon. Not pain. Not exactly. More like... pressure. Like something under her skin was trying to get out.

“Damien,” she said through her smile, “your father’s men are at 9 o’clock. Black SUV. Tinted windows.”

She’d noticed them two minutes ago. Damien hadn’t. Or he pretended not to.

“I know,” he said. Still smiling for the cameras. “Ignore them. Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Kiss. Me.” His fingers tightened on her waist. “The board needs a headline that isn’t ‘Kaine CEO Forced Into Sham Marriage.’ Give them ‘Redeemed Billionaire Can’t Keep Hands Off New Bride.’ Now.”

Alina hated him. She hated his father more. She hated that 84% of her dad’s heart was still beating because of this man’s signature.

So she did what Mrs. Kaine-to-be was supposed to do.

She grabbed his tie, yanked him down, and kissed him.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was angry and public and a declaration of war disguised as romance.

Damien stilled for half a second. Then his hand slid up her back, into her hair, and he kissed her back like he was drowning and she was air.

The cameras went insane. Flash. Flash. Flash.

And then Alina felt it.

The burn in her shoulder blade spiked. White hot. Her vision tunneled. Her heartbeat went from 80 to 160 in one second.

Her fingers, still fisted in Damien’s tie, _clenched_.

She heard the fabric rip.

She heard Damien inhale, sharp.

She broke away, gasping.

His tie was in her hand. Torn clean off. Not pulled. _Torn_. Like paper.

The silk was expensive. Italian. It wasn’t supposed to tear like that unless you took scissors to it.

Damien looked down at the ruined tie, then at her hand. His gray eyes weren’t angry. They were calculating. Like she’d just shown him a new variable in an equation he thought he’d solved.

“Smile,” he told her, voice low. He took the torn tie from her and shoved it in his pocket. “We’re done here.”

*7:32 PM — The Penthouse, Elevator*

The doors closed and Damien finally dropped the act.

“Show me your hand.”

Alina looked down. Her palm was red. Not bleeding. Just... marked. Like she’d gripped a hot pipe.

“I don’t know what happened,” she lied.

“You do.” He grabbed her wrist. His grip was hard, but not painful. Clinical. He turned her hand over. “No blisters. No tear. But you shredded wool-silk blend with your bare fingers. That’s 40 pounds of tensile force minimum.”

_Increase Subject A’s dosage._

Damien Sr.’s voice echoed in her head.

“I’m tired,” Alina said. “The lights. The questions. It was—”

“Don’t.” Damien cut her off. “Don’t insult both of us by lying. My father’s ‘vitamins’ are working. You’re integrating.”

He let go of her wrist like it burned him. “How long have you been blacking out?”

Alina’s blood went cold. “I haven’t—”

“The kitchen. Four nights ago. Maria found you on the floor. You said you ‘got dizzy.’ The marble was cracked, Alina. You weigh 120 pounds soaking wet. You don’t crack marble by falling.”

He knew. Of course he knew. He watched her on the cameras he swore were for her protection.

“I don’t remember falling,” she admitted. It was the first honest thing she’d said to him all day. “I was looking at the camera. Then I was on the floor. And my shoulder...” She touched it through her dress. It was hot. Always hot now. “It burns.”

Damien was quiet. The elevator dinged. Penthouse.

He didn’t move to get off. He hit the button to stop the doors from opening.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Whatever you’re feeling — strength, speed, memory gaps — you don’t use it. Not where anyone can see. Not yet. My father is watching. If he thinks you’re a successful prototype, he’ll take you. And ‘take’ doesn’t mean divorce court, Alina. It means a lab table and a bone saw.”

Prototype.

The word made her stomach roll.

“How do I stop it?”

“You don’t.” Damien’s honesty was brutal. “Nanites don’t leave. They’re rebuilding you. Muscle density. Neural pathways. Pain tolerance. That’s why he chose you. Your genetic marker... you’re not just compatible. You’re _ideal_.”

The elevator doors tried to open. Damien hit the button again.

“Three more weeks until the wedding,” he said. “Three more weeks until I control the board and my shares. After that, I get you out. I get your dad out. We disappear. But until then, you play the weak, pretty bride. You faint at galas. You lean on me. You do _not_ rip any more ties.”

He finally let the doors open. “And you don’t go anywhere alone. Not even the bathroom. Not until we know what triggers the blackouts.”

Alina stepped into the penthouse. Her prison with better furniture.

“Am I your wife or your science project?” she asked the empty air.

Damien didn’t answer.

*3:04 AM — Missing Time*

Alina woke up to cold.

Not penthouse cold. _Lab_ cold. The kind of cold that lives in concrete and fluorescent lights and fear.

She was sitting in a chair. Metal. Her wrists were strapped down. Not tight. Like someone had done it in a hurry.

Where—

_The penthouse. I was in bed. I checked the locks. I—_

A monitor beeped to her left. Heart rate: 101. Blood pressure: elevated. Nanite integration: 42%.

42%. It was 31% yesterday.

“Subject A is conscious.”

Alina’s head snapped up.

A man in a lab coat stood by a glass wall. Behind him, screens showed her brain. Her bones. Her blood, with silver flecks moving through it like fish.

“Where am I?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Kaine Tower. Sub-Basement 4. R&D.” The lab coat didn’t look at her. He tapped a tablet. “You walked here, Miss Reyes. At 2:17 AM. Biometrics show no signs of external coercion. Fascinating.”

_I walked here._

She didn’t remember getting out of bed. Didn’t remember the elevator. Didn’t remember the 40 floors down.

“What did you do to me?”

“Me?” The lab coat finally smiled. It was not a nice smile. “I didn’t do anything. Damien Sr. did. He calls you the ‘perfect iteration.’ Stronger than the men. More stable. Less... rage-prone. Though that seems to be changing.”

He nodded to her right hand.

Alina looked down.

Her fingers were red. Wet.

Blood.

Not hers.

On the table next to her was a scalpel. Also bloody. And a piece of white fabric. Torn. With a name tag.

_D. Kaine._

Damien’s tie? No. A shirt.

“Where is he?” Alina’s heart was a drum. “Where’s Damien?”

“Mr. Kaine Jr. is in his office. He’s been there all night. He doesn’t know you’re here. Yet.” The lab coat tapped his tablet. “The night staff found you in Lab 3, standing over an unconscious guard. You’d dislocated his shoulder. Clean. No hesitation. No memory of it, I assume?”

Alina pulled at the straps. They gave. Like they were meant to.

“Why am I awake now? Why tell me this?”

“Because Phase Three requires conscious participation.” The door behind the lab coat hissed open. “And because he wants to see what you’ll do next.”

Damien Sr. walked in.

He looked exactly like his son, but wrong. Like someone had taken Damien and drained the color out. The same gray eyes, but empty. The same mouth, but it had never said anything true.

“Hello, Alina,” Damien Sr. said. “You’re even prettier when you’re angry.”

Alina lunged.

The straps broke like they were string.

She was across the room in one second. Her hand was around his throat in two.

She lifted him.

He was a grown man. 200 pounds. She lifted him one-handed off the floor like he was a coat.

The silver lines under her skin were glowing now. She could see them in the reflection of the glass. Running up her arms. Her neck.

“Fix me,” she snarled. “Or I put you through that wall.”

Damien Sr. didn’t choke. He smiled. Blood trickled from where her nails cut his neck.

“You can’t,” he whispered. “If you kill me, the kill switch in your father’s heart activates. Did my son tell you that? Did he tell you you’re the leash and the weapon?”

The lab door slammed open.

“Let him go. Now.”

Damien Jr.

He was in the doorway. No suit jacket. Shirt sleeves rolled up. His tie gone. His face was bloodless. In his hand was a gun. Pointed at the floor. Not at her. At his father.

“Alina,” Damien Jr. said, and his voice wasn’t CEO cold. It was human. Ragged. “You don’t want to do this. Not like this. He wins if you do.”

“Did you know?” She didn’t let go. Damien Sr.’s feet kicked, two inches off the ground. “About the kill switch? Did you know I’m the bomb and my dad’s the collateral?”

“Yes.” Damien Jr. didn’t lie. He never lied. That was the problem. “I found out three days ago. I was trying to find a way to disarm it before you—”

“Liar.”

She threw Damien Sr.

He hit the glass wall. It cracked. He slid down, gasping, laughing.

“Look at that,” Damien Sr. wheezed. “Forty-two percent and she can throw 200 pounds like a pillow. Imagine 100%.” He looked at his son. “She’s better than you, boy. Stronger. Smarter. She’ll burn you down and thank me for it.”

Alina was shaking. The rage was a flood. The silver in her veins was fire. She looked at her hands. They could kill. Easily.

She looked at Damien Jr. The gun. The face that was his father’s but wasn’t. The man who bought her. Who didn’t pay. Who married her. Who gave her the keys.

“Choose,” she told him. “Him or me. Right now.”

Damien Jr. looked at his father. Then at her.

He raised the gun.

And pointed it at his own head.

“The kill switch is biometrically linked to me,” he said quietly. “My father coded it that way. I die, your dad lives. The nanites go dormant. You’re free.”

He met her eyes. “I’m not a good man, Alina. But I’m not him. And I’m done letting him use me to hurt you.”

His finger moved to the trigger.

*To Be Continued...*

*Author’s Note*: HE’S GOING TO UNALIVE HIMSELF TO SAVE HER DAD?! Can Alina stop him? Is this the real Damien or another manipulation? Ep 6 drops Friday. Comment “DON’T YOU DARE” if your heart stopped.

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